Thursday, 18 December 2014

Thanks to one of my wonderful associate teachers Andrea for this simple idea to start the New Year in Spanish ,,,,and I think this will work in other languages too!

Andrea brought home from Spain a couple of weekends ago this advent calendar with a difference if you are a Spanish child waiting for the three Kings to bring your presents on 5 January!

The activities below would transfer to other languages too where there is a festive celebration of Epiphany.

The activities are about numbers and dates

Puzzle It Out

Give out number cards on each card is the figure for one of the numbers

Ask the volunteers with the cards to stand at the front of the class

Don't give any of the children any clues but ask the class to decide how to put these numbers in to a sensible order.

Can they work out that these are dates of the calendar month from 25th December to 5 January?

Explain the significance of these numbers and how they are linked to the dates from 25 December to 5th of January.

Can the children say the numbers with you?

Can the children count with a partner the missing numbers from 6 to 24?

Listen to volunteers count the missing numbers.

Hunt the first!

Share with the children the written form of the number as a date.

Can the children spot an odd one out because the first of the month will be el primero in Spanish and le premier in French.

Can the children identify and explain the difference between the first of the month and the other dates they can see.

Can the children now help you to write some of the dates in the target language between 25th December and 5th January

e.g. Spanish

el primero de enero / el triente de diciembre

e.g.French

le premier janvier/ le trente décembre

Dates and a Quiz Quiz Swap Game of "Happy New Year" or "Kings for the Day"!

Give out date cards - one to each child (each card is between 25th December and 5th January).

Ask the children to remind you what is special about the date "first of January~" and why it's different to the other dates they can see on their cards.Have they remembered that its el primero /le premier...? Share with the children the importance too of 1st January or ask the children do they know the significance of the date. Practise with the children wishing each other a "Happy New Year" in the target language.

The children must walk around the room whispering the question "What date is it" to another child.

The other child says the date on his /her card.

The two children swap roles and then when they have completed the question and answer this second time, they swap cards and move to a new partner.

Hold pauses in the game and anyone holding the date card for 1st January must sit out the next round of questions and answers until you pause the game again.The class should wish them a "Happy New Year" in the target language: "

Anyone with the date card of 5th January gets a team point...as their Epiphany treat! At the end of the game which team will have most points and be "Kings for the Day" ?

Tuesday, 16 December 2014

We have been considering ways to support all our colleagues to deliver appropriate primary target languages grammar as part of the language learning in school.This fourth round up blog focuses on sentences structure: nouns ,adjectives and commonly used verbs. We want our teachers to be confident enough to share with children clearly and successfully how to use some verbs in the target language.Remember we stage the learning of verbs across four years of KS2 ...so the activities below represent work with different stages of learner and year groups.

We like to encourage the children to look at texts carefully and become independent language detectives!The magical magnifying glass allows us to ask children to find key language ... and the magnifying glass allows us to search a sentence for the clues we are looking for.

Here is a novel and useful language learning tool that can be used as a device over and over again to explore sentences- putting parts of sentences back together, categorising parts of sentences etc.It can be used with beginners,children who are moving on to the more advanced learners. The device could be an independent activity left in the quiet order for children to use or complete independent grammar tasks during the week etc.

First steps to independent writing ,taking notice of punctuation in the target language.An activity that can then be developed to text based mind the gap writing for dialogues and more detailed text with moving on and advanced language learners.

This is a simple activity that can be used on many different levels . You can work with the children with key individual words,a series of nouns with adjectives, question , sentence , complex sentence or short text .

a device to track the progress children are making in their ability to write descriptions about themselves and to ask questions- linked to a specific theme .In this case we are collecting leaves as it's based around an Autumn time theme.

This is a great activity using familiar language, drama and grammar for children who are “moving on” in their language learning. It reinforces the literacy work that schools are engaging their children with to understand the grammar of a sentence and the construction of a sentences . It’s an activity that demands correct pronunciation and intonation of the target language and asks the children to not just decode but also understand the message they read and to demonstrate this through performance! It’s also great fun!

This idea can be used across a wide range of language and contexts but it really made me think about how we can help children to improve their target language with physical prompts.We were focusing upon nouns ( and definite articles) simple present tense common verbs ( in this instance "to be" ) and adjectives ( colours in this case) and how they need to agree with the nouns they describe in French and Spanish.

Writing sentences using bilingual dictionaries to create a sparkling description of a crown or an object(as activity is transferable to other contexts) Activity on three levels :beginners ,moving on. advanced

Why not create a class book shop window "display" of target language book covers - one book cover for each month of the year with learners who are moving on.Take a look at nouns, verbs , adjectival agreement and the superlative.Take learning walk along the sentence.Using our magical magnifying glasses, we can analyse the text on the book cover

Monday, 15 December 2014

We have been considering ways to support all our colleagues to deliver appropriate primary target languages grammar as part of the language learning in school.This third round up blog focuses on commonly used verbs in the present tense.We want our teachers to be confident enough to share with children clearly and successfully how to use some verbs in the target language.Remember we stage the learning of verbs across four years of KS2 ...so the activities below represent work with different stages of learner and year groups.

We like to encourage the children to look at texts carefully and become independent language detectives!The magical magnifying glass allows us to ask children to find key language ... so here we could be searching for

Bring Art to life !Practise verbal phrases with beginner learners.I use these activities mid way/ toward the end of the first year of target language learning .The children are confidently recalling and saying verbal phrases and personal information sentences about themselves which all contain verbs in the present tense

I like to revisit the same picture with the children as they progress in their language learning and confidence . They can see how much more they are capable of achieving and also we are building a soap opera based on the characters we are getting to know in the picture

The activities take the children from being able to ask and say who a character is in the first , second , third person singular and plural to developing personalities behind the masks for the characters and adding performance and drama !

Creating your own Easter movie based in a simple famous rhyme and practising the use of regular "er" verbs in the third person plural.Great with children who are just moving on to become more independent and able to use bi-lingual dictionaries to find the target language infinitives of verbs

We have been considering ways to support all our colleagues to deliver appropriate primary target languages grammar as part of the language learning in school.This second round up blog focuses on adjectives.We want our teachers to be confident enough to share with children clearly and successfully how to use adjectives in the target language -just like Ruth is doing here at CPD using her jungle animal shape sentences (see below)!

So how are we going about this? Below are some simple approaches that we are using to integrate the use of adjectives in to our language learning from Year 3 to Year 6.

We like to encourage the children to look at texts carefully and become independent language detectives!The magical magnifying glass allows us to ask children to find key language ... so here we could be searching for adjectives in a text for example.

All the activities below can be transferred to new contexts and content!

Simple games to begin with based upon listening and responding,pronouncing accurately and saying out loud, reading and writing adjectives.The activities here are based on colours,but could be transferred to other adjectives too.

We have been considering ways to support all our colleagues to deliver appropriate primary target languages grammar as part of the language learning in school.This first round up blog focuses on nouns.Here are some of the ways we have done this......

A group activity based on the use of nouns.Each group has the same nouns to investigate and use .The challenge is that the children need to create interesting sentences and performances so just like sculptors they create meaningful and creative spoken sculptures.This will help children to link nouns to adjectives and verbs